


Go West, Young Man

by heyjupiter



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Fisting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik go sightseeing in San Francisco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go West, Young Man

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know anything about fisting, personally! But [kink-wiki](http://kink-wiki.dreamwidth.org/tag/fisting/stretching) says: "Fisting was a prominent kink in gay men's leather communities in the 1960s and 70s, when leather neighborhoods had clubs specifically dedicated to fisting, with fisting slings and tubs of Crisco hanging in the back room." Okay!
> 
> Also, the title is from the quote attributed to Horace Greeley. And also from the song "Go West" by Liz Phair. (The two are of approximately equal historical significance, right?)

1;  
 _And it feels like I've got something to prove_  
But in some ways it's just something to do  
My friends turn me around and say,  
"You go west, young man."  
\-- Liz Phair, "Go West"

Moira purses her lips. "This is the CIA, not a travel agency, Charles," she says.

"But we're so close! And neither of us has ever seen it. Have you?"

"Yes. We went there on a family vacation when I was nine."

"Well," Charles says. "Neither Erik nor I went on any family vacations. And we're only a few hours away. We'll make a quick day trip, then come back and visit the Hellfire Club tonight. It will be a perfectly pleasant excursion! Why don't you come with us?"

Moira shrugs. "I've seen it."

"It might have changed."

"You think the Grand Canyon might have changed in the last fifteen years?" Moira asks incredulously.

"Well, perhaps not at a level perceptible to the human eye. But I am certain that it has undergone any number of changes since you last saw it. No ecosystem can survive in stasis."

Moira shakes her head. "Fine. Take Erik to see the Grand Canyon."

"Excellent." He hesitates. "And Moira? Don't try to visit the Hellfire Club without us. They're dangerous."

Moira rolls her eyes. "I'm the CIA agent, Charles. You're the professor of genetics. What good are you going to do me in a fight?"

"I could make them all forget to fight you."

"Be back before dark, Charles. And be kind to the rental car."

Charles smiles. "Even if I'm not, I suspect Erik will be able to take care of it."

Unamused, Moira returns to her paperwork without another word. Charles knocks on the door of Erik's hotel room, and it swings open of its own volition.

Charles raises an eyebrow. "How did you know it was me?" he asks.

"No one else knocks in quite such a precise manner," Erik says, without looking up from his book, _The Once and Future King_.

"Well." Charles says, suddenly shy. "Well, put your book down, Erik, we're going on a trip."

Erik raises his eyebrows. "I thought we weren't leaving until this evening."

"This isn't CIA business. It's just for sightseeing."

"And what are you going to show me, Charles?"

"The Grand Canyon. I've always wanted to see it, and it's so close to Las Vegas."

"Have you any idea how hot it is out there?"

"It's a dry heat," Charles says brightly. "Won't it be lovely to get away from this filthy city and see something beautiful?"

Erik sighs and marks his place with a bookmark. "Very well."

"Brilliant."

Charles drives and hands the unwieldy roadmap to Erik. He manages to perfectly fold it down to perfectly show the area they're planning to travel, and no more. They both look out the window at the alien, desert landscape.

"Hard to imagine building a city here," Charles says as Las Vegas disappears behind them.

"People can live anywhere," Erik replies.

"I suppose," Charles says. "Could you imagine living in a place like that, though? No culture."

"I could imagine living just about anywhere."

Charles opens his mouth to reply, but falls silent. They drive on, quietly, until they pass over the Hoover Dam. Erik sucks in a breath. Charles smiles and pulls over into the visitors' parking lot.

"It's _magnificent_ ," Erik says, and it's the second time Charles has seen him impressed by something.

"I suppose," Charles says, looking vaguely down at the water.

Erik shakes his head. "Come here. See it the way I see it." Erik rarely invites Charles into his mind, and he can't resist the opportunity. He steps closer and lays a hand on Erik's cheek, after glancing around to make sure no one else is around. He closes his eyes and gasps with delight, sharing Erik's thrill at the heavy iron rods supporting the dam. They're invisible to everyone else, trapped within the concrete. But to Erik, they shine like neon cafe signs. " _We're open_ ," the dam tells Erik. " _Come in_."

"Astonishing," Charles breathes.

"Quite."

They stand quietly for a long moment, feeling the metal hum. Finally, after an eternity, or perhaps it's only five minutes, Charles pulls his hand back from Erik's face and they get back in the car. It's a longer drive than Charles had thought, but the company is good. Erik reads him T. H. White. The Arthurian legend is an incongruous fit with the desert landscape, but enjoyable nonetheless. Charles finds himself spacing out, not really paying attention to the words so much as the rich timbre of Erik's voice. He blinks when Erik reads, "Why can't you harness might so that it works for right?"

"Why can't we?" he asks abruptly.

"Is that not what we're trying to do?" Erik asks.

"I suppose. But... "

"But we are not kings?" Erik supplies.

"Not yet," Charles says with a grin.

Erik gives him a long, piercing look before returning to the book. Charles wonders how he manages to avoid motion sickness, then supposes that Erik is made of rather stronger stuff than he is. He keeps his eyes on the road. The landscape begins to change. They see more trees, and the elevation increases. Finally, they see a brown wooden sign with white letters: GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK. The sign is quaint, and Charles is charmed by it. He parks, and they hike to Mather Point, a scenic overview of the canyon. The day is clear, and the view is spectacular.

Charles takes a deep breath of fresh air and smiles broadly. Erik looks at him curiously, then out at the vista.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose," Erik says. "It's... different."

With a crushing burst of clarity, Charles realizes that the dam had been more beautiful to Erik. His friend preferred the work of engineers to the work of God, of the river and of time. If the point of this trip had been to please Erik, they could have stopped driving a few hours ago. But they hadn't stopped, and Charles was determined to make the most of it.

"Imagine, Erik, this canyon was worn away imperceptibly, year by year for millions of years. It's over a mile deep! Look at it!" He sweeps his arm out at it. The rich colors, the sheer scale of it... it's recognizable as the image he's seen on postcards, but it's so much more than that. There's no way a person could capture the, well, grandness of it in a single image. Charles wants to drink it all in. He wants to remember it forever.

Erik says, "I suppose it was worth the wait," but he doesn't sound quite convinced. They take a brief walk along the canyon's rim, but before too long they have to turn back and return to Las Vegas, to Moira and the Hellfire Club and to saving the world.

"Well, was it everything you dreamed it would be?" Moira asks.

"Yes," Charles says. Erik shrugs.

Their reconnaissance mission is disappointing. There is no further sign of Shaw. No one they encounter seems to even remember meeting him. He has left Las Vegas, and his companion has ensured that all traces of their presence have left the city as well.

The next morning they return the rental car and wait to board their flight back to Washington.

"Still, at least we got in some sightseeing," Charles says.

"We _must_ find Shaw," Erik says.

"We will," Moira says.

* * *

2;  
 _And I'm looking for somebody to do my thinking for me_  
Till I come through  
The state-line highway sign says,  
"You have gone west, young man."  
\-- Liz Phair, "Go West"

Erik isn't at all sure what he's gotten himself into, not with the CIA, not with Charles Xavier. All he wants to do is kill Sebastian Schmidt/Shaw. That's _all_ he wants, he reminds himself sternly. He doesn't have time for babysitting. He doesn't have time for this naive, beautiful geneticist. This is all simply a means to an end. He has no trouble remembering that, as long as Charles doesn't smile at him.

Charles is smiling at him now. "Where should we go first?" he asks, handing him a list of coordinates. Erik is both pleased and annoyed at that "we," at the assumption that Erik would accompany Charles to seek out these new mutants they've found. Erik bites back the urge to say, "I don't care;" not because he cares, but because he knows that Charles wants him to care. He glances at the list and taps a location.

"San Francisco," he says.

"Wonderful," Charles says. "Go west, young man."

"Yes, I suppose," Erik says. "Manifest destiny for mutants."

When they arrive that night, Charles is shocked to discover that the address is a gentleman's club. They find young Angel and have no trouble persuading her to join them. Erik is terribly amused by Charles's reaction to the whole thing. Charles is turned on and embarrassed and smug and vaguely disapproving. Erik has an idea, a wicked idea.

He says, "After we take Angel back to our hotel, why don't we go do some sightseeing?"

Charles raises his eyebrows. "At this hour?"

"Yes," he says, and he knows Charles won't refuse him.

"Well, all right," Charles says. "An adventure!" Erik smiles.

They drop off Angel, who seems perfectly content with her new accommodations, and Erik makes a discreet inquiry. The young man at the night desk sizes him up and gives him an address and a sneer. Erik politely smiles and thanks him. As he leaves the lobby, he hears the man curse when the hotel's clunky cash register drawer suddenly pops out. Erik hopes it leaves a bruise on the clerk's elbow.

He takes Charles out to Folsom Street, to a bath house. He chooses one that caters to the leather crowd, and his jeans and black leather jacket, though tame, blend in.

"We've gone west, young man," Erik says.

"I didn't know there was a dress code," Charles says, masking his discomfort with a joke. He's wearing slacks and an Oxford shirt.

"Perhaps we can find you something else to wear," Erik says. Charles blushes.

"Erik..." he says, and then trails off.

"We can just have a look around," Erik says. "An... adventure." He takes Charles' hand and Charles clings to him. He's in over his head here. They leave the bar and go into the back room. There's a leather sling hanging from the ceiling. A man is reclining in it, his lover (or a stranger--who knows, here)'s arm buried inside him.

"Oh my," Charles says, and Erik fights as hard as he can to keep from laughing.

"Come now," Erik purrs. "That doesn't look like a nice time to you?"

"I, it..."

"Imagine how tight, how full he must feel. A fist inside him. Do you think his lover has big hands? Do you think it hurts more going in, or coming back out?"

Charles is speechless. Erik whispers, "You could tell, couldn't you? You could tell me exactly how he feels, if you wanted."

"Erik, I'm not going to--not going to... intrude."

Erik snorts. "They like it. They like that we're watching. They'd like it if you read their minds."

They stand quietly for a moment and listen. The man being fisted is moaning in pleasure-pain. The man fisting is murmuring to him. "You like that, don't you? Like my fist in your ass? You dirty fucking fag, you love it, you want more. Maybe tomorrow night we'll see if we can get both my hands up in your slutty ass."

"Yes, more," the man moans.

"That does not sound medically advisable," Charles whispers.

Erik laughs. His cock is hard, but he's not sure if it's from the spectacle unfolding in front of him, or from the delicious discomfort he knows Charles is feeling.

Erik suspects that he is not a very nice person.

"Erik... are you... have you ever?" Charles whispers.

"Have I ever what, Charles? Have I ever put my hand up another man's ass?" Charles nods hesitantly, and Erik pauses for a long time, just to tease him, before saying, "No, of course I haven't."

"But have you ever..."

Erik waits for Charles to finish, and sighs. "You're a grown man, Charles. Finish your question."

"Are you a homosexual?"

"Can't you read my mind, Charles?"

"Is that an invitation?"

"Yes."

Charles gently places his hands on Erik's face. He enters Erik's mind, and Erik bends down and kisses Charles on the lips. They join mouths and they join minds, and Erik is certain the experience is far more intimate than the one taking place on the sling. Erik is careful to keep all the thoughts at the front of his mind about Charles, about sex. He has some memories that Charles has no need to share.

Charles moans and says, "We should get back to our hotel."

Erik says, "Why bother?" He pushes Charles against the wall and kisses him hard. He licks Charles's throat, nibbles his earlobes. Charles makes a soft little sound, and Erik can feel his erection pressing against his hip.

"No, Erik," Charles says. He sounds dazed. "Not... we should get back to our hotel."

Erik considers. Perhaps he shouldn't push his blue-blooded friend too far, not all at once. You couldn't fist a virgin, not without doing some serious physical damage, and perhaps you couldn't fuck a virgin in a public bath house without doing some serious psychological damage. "We'll find a cab," he says. He finds tremendous satisfaction in the desperate look in Charles's eyes.

The trip back to their hotel feels impossibly long, though it can't be more than fifteen minutes. Erik's cock aches with need, and they're barely an inch in the door of Erik's hotel room when he starts ripping at Charles's shirt.

He murmurs to Charles in German, in French. Charles responds with pure telepathic images. They both speak in the universal language of moans and grunts. Before long they're both naked. Erik helps Charles get into the right position, he helps ready his asshole with hand lotion. He wishes he'd taken some of the Crisco from the bath house, but Erik knows how to make do. It feels so good when he finally enters him. He slowly thrusts in and out, letting Charles get used to it. Charles moans, and Erik reaches forward and jerks his cock with well-lotioned hands. Neither of them last very long, not after waiting so long for this moment.

Sated, they fall asleep curled up together. For the first night in quite some time, Erik sleeps soundly through the night.

In the morning, Charles looks at him shyly. Erik smiles. "Good morning, Charles," he says.

"Good morning, my friend," Charles replies. "Would you like to go on an adventure?"

Erik tilts his head curiously. "Yes, all right," he says. "What about Angel?"

"It's still early. We'll be back well before we need to leave. Probably before she wakes up."

Charles whispers something to the cab driver, who shrugs and takes off. They go up and down hills and suddenly they're driving along the bay. The driver lets them out at the Roundhouse, a strange, round restaurant at the entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge. Erik stares at the bridge, transfixed. He's seen photos of it, of course, but in person, it takes his breath away. The steel cables and rivets sing to him.

Charles smiles and takes his hand. "Extraordinary," Erik says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Go West (the nostalgia parade remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4177293) by [obstinatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix)




End file.
